I can log in for some items (Music, for instance), but I can't log in for iCloud, email, etc. I don't get any failures... just a spinning wheel.
Anybody have any experience with this? Thank you.
Been reading the thread on this. I had the same issue when I installed Catalina from El Capitan - couldn't log into icloud or get my icloud email to load. It kept complaining about my id already being signed in. I finally fixed it last night. Initially I tried reinstalling Catalina but that messed up my APFS and I got the "Could not create a Preboot Volume for APFS Install. I researched that and apparently somewhere around Sierra Apple changed from HFS+ to APFS. Everything I found was saying I should delete the hard drive but I wasn't comfortable doing that. Figured that by now Apple had figured out how to roll that into the upgrade install so I opted for fixing the volumes on the drive. Then I reinstalled the Catalina OS. After that completed I hoped my issue with my id would be resolved but it wasn't. It was still complaining about the account I was using (my appleid) was already active. I stumbled upon someone (I'm going to go back and try to find their handle to give them credit) that said you should :
0pen the Terminal app
Type defaults delete MobileMeAccounts
Hit enter to execute this command. This will force macOS to sign you out of iCloud - now you should be able to log in from the iCloud pane in System Preferences.
When I did this I got a message that the default shell had been changed and it prompted me to change it to the "zsh shell" which I did and then proceeded with the above. The prompt came back and said that a MobileMeAccount didn't exist. Regardless, it did FIX THE PROBLEM!
Hope it works for you.
How did you do this? I can only copy these files. They won't "move" Also, which keychain folder? System keychain folder I can't move or delete.
No that didn’t work. Was greyed out as I wasn’t signed in.
I ended up reinstalling the system and was able to slowly and painstakingly sign back in.
then sign back in on all my iOS devices.
I think I may have deleted my keychain. Is that bad? I can’t sign in to iCloud on iMac since I updated to Catalina.
As stated in the Solved response, if you’ve previously been backing up your Keychain to the cloud, and you follow these steps, your Mac will download keychain locally.
Hello. I tried the solved response. Moved my keychain folder elsewhere. Rebooted and tried to log into iCloud, but I still get the "error connecting to the Apple ID server" message.
This is what finally worked for me, thank you for posting this. Finally able to use iCloud again on my Mac with Catalina.
Responding to suggesdtions how to back up the Keychains content... How will the OS know where I copied the keychains ?
Shall the original Keychains folder remain in place ?
Can't Log Into iCloud Since Catalina Upgrade
